innovate-issue-005

time we don’t remember the person, we just remember how that person made us feel. She made mefeel as no other person had made me felt before.The feeling was deeper inside! When she left that night, the only thing I remembered since then wasthe hollow grinding noise in my stomach.With trembling hands, I sent her a friend request. I could feel my heartbeats coming out to my throatand there was numbness in my brain. I don’t know what it was called by the poets, but the numbness,diluted all of my senses.After what seemed to be an eternity of me staring at her profile picture, there was a notification. Shehad accepted my friend request.Next day I accepted my holiday offer. By 6 am, I was standing on the porch with my packed suitcase.It was first time in 5 years that I was traveling alone without my band members and without my tourbus. It was a strange feeling to be alone in a city; I was not habituated to it. I was habituated to crowd.I wondered how the time has changed. There was a time I was habituated to solitude but now I washabituated to its opposite. Cruel play of dice!!I had called her before hand and virtually invited myself for a dinner in their home. I wanted to takethem to a good restaurant but I was tired of eating at restaurants. They are all same, same menu’s thatonly differ my themes and same easy talking waiters and of courses fans asking for autographs andpictures. I could never enjoy my meals there, so I told her that I am coming for dinner at her home andshe happily invited me.I remember it was close to 8pm that I made my way to her front door clad in my black tux that I woreon Roul’s mother’s funeral. It was the only tux I actually had! Rest of the things I used to wear wasfrom the sponsors that I had to return back after the shows. As I told you before, I was empty frominside.I took a gift for Anita, a brand new piece of dress that Brad suggested and for Sivang a brand new tux.Well I miscalculated when I realized they had a baby.Anita opened the door for me and Sivang smiling brightly behind her.She didn’t change a bit!! She was standing by the door, smiling as brightly anyone could smile andkindness flirting in her eyes. She was nice. She was king to me.When I was eating with her family, I realized how different my life was! Mine was not a life.They had pictures all over the wall. Pictures of Rihanta, (the baby girl, she was 1 year old by then)playing with Anita or Sivang or playing with both of them. In some of the pictures, Rihanta was alonein the garden, playing with the wild flowers while the sunshine made patterns on her face. The pictureswere beautiful.Anita was saying a lot of things and Sivang silently interjected her at the right moments, saying theright words. While I sat there transfixed in the whirlpool of my own fucking emotions that made mechoke. I couldn’t swallow a morsel let alone enjoy the meal. I sometimes wonder, why saying the rightthings at the right moments make such a difference in the course of life.They were happy that’s why I shouldn’t be there, ruffling the feathers of peace. I should be back in mystudio, making songs so that people can listen to them. People will enjoy the songs with their lovedones while I sit inside the blanket of darkness.We artists are strange breeds. We don’t enjoy normalcy despite of the fact that how much we carve forit. We can never lead a normal life, we want tragedies, and we want sadness to haunt us in every path